Is this Deadly Nightshade?

[Flummery]

It's also called Pheasant Berry. We do get pheasants in the garden - maybe that's what they're after?

[gojiberry]

Seeds all over the place but easy to pull up.

Ian

[thepoisongarden]

Sorry to be a couple of weeks behind the discussion but I'm new here.

We have a Leycesteria Formosa and the blackbirds, especially, like the berries. They hang down about a foot from the ground so the birds stand under them, point their beaks vertically and jump up to try and spear them. It's quite amusing to watch and they seem to be quite successful.

The berries of Atropa belladonna, deadly nightshade, look rather like black cherries. Each single berry sits on a rosette of 'leaves' so it looks like it is being offered on a plate.

Jeanied, I've never heard anyone refer to bryony as deadly nightshade but that's one problem with the common names they get applied to a variety of plants. Americans, in particular, seem to refer to Solanum dulcamara as deadly nightshade rather than woody nightshade or bittersweet.

[Jeanied]

Ah, yes Thepoisongarden - quite right. There is me getting my childhood hedgerow plants mixed up - and the nightshades have purple flowers not white. (I did remember the poisonous bit though!)
Welcome to the vine, by the way, why don't you pop onto the introduce yourself thread as I am sure many of us will be very interested to hear all about you?

[thepoisongarden]

Jeanied

I did wonder but I've learnt not to leap in and tell people they are wrong because common names do get applied to all sorts of different plants and can be very localised.

A plant in Norfolk may have a completely different name to that used in Lincolnshire.

That's why some plants end up with many common names.